A Michigan priest had his license revoked by the Anglican Catholic Church after he mimicked Elon Musk’s controversial straight-arm gesture, which many have likened to a Nazi salute, during a speech.
The church announced it dismissed Calvin Robinson as a priest and rescinded his license after he made the gesture at the end of his speech Saturday during the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, D.C.
“The Holocaust was an episode of unspeakable horror, enacted by a regime of evil men,” the Anglican Catholic Church said in a statement on its website. “We condemn Nazi ideology and anti-Semitism in all its forms.”
The statement continued, “And we believe that those who mimic the Nazi salute, even as a joke or an attempt to troll their opponents, trivialize the horror of the Holocaust and diminish the sacrifice of those who fought against its perpetrators. Such actions are harmful, divisive, and contrary to the tenets of Christian charity.”
The church said Robinson previously had been “warned that online trolling and other such actions (whether in service of the left or right) are incompatible with a priestly vocation and was told to desist.”
Elsewhere in the church’s statement, it said “members of the College of Bishops of the ACC were made aware” of Robinson’s gesture about 3 p.m. Wednesday from “a post made on X [formerly Twitter] showing the end of” Robinson’s speech.
HuffPost has reached out to the Anglican Catholic Church for comment.
Musk’s gesture that Robinson was imitating occurred during the Tesla co-founder’s Jan. 20 speech at a post-inauguration celebration for President Donald Trump. Musk slapped his chest and then thrust the same arm straight out into the air with his palm down in a manner that resembled a Nazi salute.
He then turned around and did the same movement again, telling the crowd “My heart goes out to you.”
Musk denied the accusations in a Jan. 20 tweet, writing, “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”
Robinson also denied being a Nazi or doing a Nazi salute during the summit, saying in a Facebook post the gesture was “a joke” meant to chastise “liberals.”
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“The joke at the end was a mockery of the hysterical ‘liberals’ who called Elon Musk a Nazi for quite clearly showing the audience his heart was with them. Context is key, but sometimes people ignore context to confirm their own prejudices. People see what they want to see,” he wrote.
Robinson went on to blame his actions on his “attempt at dry wit” before questioning whether the public’s “responses have been proportionate.”
“My attempt at dry wit, in that typical British way, was not a joke at the expense of WW II, nor an admission of my membership in the Nationalist Socialist Party,” he continued in his post. “You can consider my joke crass. But I ask you to consider if your responses have been proportionate?”